“Droning” On…

We hear more about drones as technology and less about their strategic purpose as remote killing machines, and the implications of that rapidly increasing capability.

Rocks and sticks and other sharp objects were the first drones — killing devices controlled by humans at some distance, however modest, from their target. Chinese firesticks, rifles, pistols, cannon then came along, followed by flying manned bombers and missiles.

Reagan tinkered with space-based lasers, but that costly technology wound up on two card tables in the basement of Yerkes Observatory at Geneva Lake, Wisconsin.

Then, to further help avert the need for sending in troops or blowing up large chunks of geography, and to save a few gazillion bucks too, we come to the era of drones, which cannot only kill more precisely, but invade the privacy of anything that can be scanned from the air.

We’re upset about collateral damage — those innocents near a target who get killed, and whose families will forever hate and seek revenge on the monsters responsible. We’re concerned that anyone, including U.S. citizens, can be targeted by drones, with an apparent paucity of checks and balances to be sure they deserve a death sentence from the sky.

What’s next, perhaps lasers carried aloft by drones, which can pin-point a target more closely, and explode the brain of a single person? And what happens when rogues of all kinds — terrorists, nations or even individuals — can target people anywhere with drones? Yes, that’s around the corner, too. Have we unleashed the terror of the end times?

Well, that’s what peoples have thought each step along the way of remote killing. But Instead of gun powder and vast armies moving across the terrain, we have pin pricks of death popping off human targets anywhere at will. At the end of the day, the only saving grace for individuals will be the overwhelming use of power — new powers — by protecting entities.

Like a country, like the U.S., approaching a time with a gun in nearly every home and pocket book, the day of the ubiquitous killing drone is just around the corner. Interesting that our far-seeing government has canned NASA’s human space program. Now, we can just send out our drones to conquer the universe. And so it goes. Sorry for “droning” on.

4 comments

Thanks for addressing this, Chuck, I tend to be in favor of limited use of drones. I think we do need to ensure good Congressional oversight.

Now let me politicize this. I’m glad to see the left is finally picking up on the use of drones. After berating the Bush administration for years over waterboarding, until now, there’s been barely a squeak from the mainstream media on this topic. Needless to say, drones really kill people; waterboarding just scares the daylights out of them.

On Meet the Press today, Michael Isikoff said something astounding: The total number of terrorists who were waterboarded by the Bush administration was three. So far already, drones have killed three Americans, and who knows how many civilians and actual terrorists.

Where’s the mainstream media when you need them? They chose to look the other way on this one.

You probably won’t recall that we exchanged messages a couple of eons ago when I pedantically wrote to you about your anachronistic use of the word “Pecksniffian” in the context of Dr Johnson. (It being Dickensian in coinage a century after that time.)

The Internet informs me that subsequently, the word has been in vogue in some quarters and was recently used several times by Bill O’Reilly which alone is sufficient reason for me to strike it from my lexicon and withdraw my subscription to Fox News.

Shortly afterwards, I spent some time as a guest of Saint Thomas (not him personally, of course but an institution dedicated to his name.) Your various profound jottings have kept me entertained, interested and frequently moved. The piece on your visit to NYC was both original and very thought-provoking. Another recent essay on the psychology of colours I found very informative.

(From my spelling in that last sentence, you will gather that I am not from your shores.) But may I pay you a compliment by saying that your epistles from the United States do remind me of the work of our distinguished exiled correspondent, Alistair Cooke who began work on his varied commentary in the year of my birth and continued for nearly sixty years. Naturally, I wasn’t too appreciative in my earliest years but later found the warmth and intimacy of his transatlantic broadcasts to be very rewarding in my appreciation of your country, its people and their activities.

I return to Thomas the Apostle as he has gone down in history as being of a questioning or doubting nature…and I hope you will excuse me if I wax disputatious with you over some inaccuracies in your “Red, White, Blue and You” essay.

In my schooldays, I learned that the primary colours were: Red, Blue and Yellow, as these cannot be mixed from any other combinations. However, I acknowledge that there is a modern digital definition that substitutes green for yellow.

Ah! That glorious imperial shade of purple! According to Plutarch, Pompey the Great was defeated at Pharsalus (in central Greece) on 9th August 49BC. (The Greek historian was writing somewhat after the event.) He wrote about Cleopatra’s lavish triumphal procession with Caesar along the Nile but that was nearly two years later, after a local battle.

The next point concerns the description of political Right and Left which date from a little more recently in Paris in 1791, where the National Assembly was replaced by a Legislative Assembly.
The modernisers sat on the left, the moderates occupied the centre….. Leaving the “conscientious defenders of the constitution” (Hmmm…) sitting on the right, the location of the defenders of the Ancien Régime.

This custom was continued under the National Convention which met in 1792, but after the arrest of the Girondins in the coup d’état of June 2, 1793, the right-hand side of the chamber lay empty. The rump of ‘the right’ moving to the centre. After the revolt against Robespierre’s ‘Reign of Terror’ – Thermidor 1794, members of the far left were expelled and the seating plan abolished. (But the potency of the descriptions have remained.)

The intention had been to prevent politically-motivated groupings…….Hmmm…

Turning to the home life of our own dear parliament….In the House of Commons, The governing party always occupies the seats on the Speaker’s left hand while those of HM’s Loyal Opposition on the Speaker’s right. Thus, there is no distinction at all between the right and left in British politics in the actual debating chamber.

“The Red Flag” is the unofficial anthem of the Labour Party of which there have been a number of parodies. Red has traditionally been the colour of revolution although black now seems to be more fashionable. Yellow is favoured by the Liberal-Democrats. The UK currently has one Green MP but the colour favoured by the emerging United Kingdom Independence Party…..anti-EC, anti-immigration, is….purple.

Incidentally, it would be wrong to characterise the old Whig party as “rabble-rousing reformers.” Charles James Fox was a fierce opponent of George III and wholeheartedly supported the American revolutionaries, as did many of his party.

Well Charles, if you’ve read this far, I should apologise for bending your ear a little too much. During my recuperation, I’ve wanted to provide as much exercise as possible for ‘the little grey cells’ and your stimulating essays are just the thing to create a reaction. Also, the weather outside is too cold and wet just now, for my ‘little grey legs’ on the golf course.

May I send you warm best wishes and hope to be reading your words for a long time to come.

John: So good to hear from you again, after our “Pecksniffian” exchange a while back. I hope this finds you in improving health. Your input and historical clarifications to my “Red, White, Blue and You” essay are not only welcome, but they are quite enlightening. Obviously my research was sketchy, and you have brought a depth of “colour” and perspective to my ramblings that not only complicate my premise regardcing left and right and red and other colors, but make it clear that there are levels of complexity to my deliberations that I had not imagined. Such is often the case as we peel back the onion of life, is it not?

In a minute, I’ll be adding some expert perspective to the quick reference I’d made in my latest blog entry about “Droning” On. I’ve viewed the Reagan Star Wars technology on what I’d remembered as card tables in the basement of Yerkes Observatory, which is nearby at Geneva Lake, Wisconsin, but as Jim Gee, the observatory director for the University of Chicago points out, there’s more complexity to it, and no card tables. I take it you reside in merry olde England. What area, may I ask? My wife and I get over there every few years, and, beware — we might drop in on you. On our last visit, we toured Johnson’s house of Gough Square.

The United States government has made hundreds of attacks on targets in northwest Pakistan since 2004 using drones ( unmanned aerial vehicles ) controlled by the Central Intelligence Agency ‘s Special Activities Division .